THE TURNING POINT.
"And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying: 'Here is a story-book
Thy Father has written for thee.'
'Come, wander with me,' she said,
'Into regions yet untrod;
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God!'"
LONGFELLOW.
There is a story told of Sir Humphry Davy, that, on being asked on
a certain occasion to enumerate what he considered as his greatest
discoveries, he named first one thing and then another,--now his
wonderful safety-lamp, then some electrical discovery, finishing up
with "but the greatest of all my discoveries was the discovery of
Michael Faraday."
In the autumn of 1812, as we have seen, Faraday was a bookbinder, whose
apprenticeship was just at an end, and who was contemplating, as the
only thing possible, the taking up of life as a journeyman at the craft
at which for seven years he had been working; indeed, a journeyman
bookbinder he became, for in October of that year he engaged himself
to a Mr. De la Roche, who, though a quick-tempered, passionate man,
seems to have really cared for Faraday, so much so, indeed, that he
said to him, "I have no child, and if you will stay with me you shall
have all I have when I am gone." But Michael was not thus to be tempted
from the path which he desired to tread, as he wrote afterwards to
Davy's biographer, "My desire to escape from trade, which I thought
vicious and selfish, and to enter into the service of science, which
I imagined made its pursuers amiable and liberal, induced me at last
to take the bold and simple step of writing to Sir H. Davy, expressing
my wishes and a hope that if an opportunity came in his way he would
favour my views; at the same time, I sent the notes I had taken of his
lectures."
Shortly after Sir Humphry received Faraday's application, speaking
to a friend--the honorary inspector of the models and apparatus--he
said, "Pepys, what am I to do? Here is a letter from a young man named
Faraday; he has been attending my lectures, and wants me to give him
employment at the Royal Institution. _What can I do?_"
"Do?" was Pepys' reply, "do? put him to wash bottles; if he is good
for anything, he will do it directly; if he refuses, he is good for
nothing."
"No, no," said Davy, "we must try him with something better than that."
Notwithstanding the fact that his similar application of some months
before to Sir Joseph Banks had met with no answer, Faraday, in his
desire to leave trade for science, had thus addressed another of
the leading men of the day. Davy's reply was "immediate, kind, and
favourable." It was this--
"_December 12th, 1812._
"To Mr. Faraday,
"Sir,--I am far from displeased with the proof you have given me of
your confidence, and which displays great zeal, power of memory, and
attention. I am obliged to go out of town, and shall not be settled
in town till the end of January; I will then see you at any time you
wish. It would gratify me to be of any service to you; I wish it may
be in my power.
"I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant,
"H. DAVY."
[Illustration: SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.]
The young bookbinder's delight on receiving the great and
kindly-natured man's note may easily be imagined, as also may his
anxiety for Davy's return. Five weeks, however, are soon passed, and
Michael duly met Sir Humphry "by the window which is nearest to the
corridor, in the ante-room to the theatre" at the Royal Institution.
Davy was much impressed by the sincerity and modesty of the applicant,
but yet advised him to continue at his bookbinding, going so far,
indeed, as to say that he would get the Royal Institution binding
for him, and would recommend him to his friends.[4] With this, for
the present, Faraday had to be content. He returned to his binding,
delighted that he had met and conversed with the greatest chemist of
his time, but still anxious for an opportunity to leave that trade
to which, as he had said, he was so averse, and to become wholly the
servant of that science to which he was so attached.
The change in his vocation was to come far more rapidly than he could
have anticipated. He was still living, at this time (early in 1813), at
18, Weymouth Street, and one night, not very long after his interview
with Davy, just as he was undressing to go to bed, there came a loud
knock at the front door. Michael went to the window to see if there
was any evidence as to whom the unwonted visitor might be. A carriage
was there, from which a footman had alighted and left a note for
"Mr. M. Faraday." It proved to be from Sir Humphry, who had already
an opportunity of serving the young enthusiast. The note requested
Michael to call on Davy the next morning. This he did, and learned that
an assistant in the laboratory of the Royal Institution was required
at once, the former assistant having been dismissed the day before.
Michael instantly expressed his willingness to accept the position; he
was to have twenty-five shillings a week salary, and two rooms at the
top of the Institution building.
It was not long before arrangements were all completed. A meeting of
the managers of the Institution was held on March 1st; the following
is entered in the minutes of that day's proceedings:--"Sir Humphry
Davy has the honour to inform the managers that he has found a person
who is desirous to occupy the situation in the Institution lately
filled by William Payne. His name is Michael Faraday. He is a youth of
twenty-two years of age. As far as Sir H. Davy has been able to observe
or ascertain, he appears well fitted for the situation. His habits seem
good, his disposition active and cheerful, and his manner intelligent.
He is willing to engage himself on the same terms as those given to
Mr. Payne at the time of quitting the Institution. _Resolved_:--That
Michael Faraday be engaged to fill the situation lately occupied by Mr.
Payne on the same terms."
The duties of the assistant were specified by the managers in the
following manner, his work being something other than the washing of
bottles, which Pepys had recommended. It is a fact, also, that Faraday,
almost from the commencement of his engagement, was concerned in more
important work than that herein particularised. He was "to attend and
assist the lecturers and professors in preparing for, and during,
lectures; when any instruments or apparatus may be required, to attend
to their careful removal from the model room or laboratory to the
lecture-room, and to clean and replace them after being used, reporting
to the manager such accidents as shall require repair, a constant diary
being kept by him for that purpose. That, in one day in each week, he
be employed in keeping clean the models in the repository, and that
all the instruments in the glass cases be cleaned and dusted at least
once within a month." As has been said, Faraday's work was almost from
the first of a higher nature; he is reported to have set in order the
mineralogical collection soon after his arrival.
But a very short while elapsed between Michael's appointment as
assistant and his taking up the duties of his post, for, on the 8th
of March, he writes to Abbott, dating his letter from his new home,
the two rooms at the top of the Institution. His letter tells us that
he was already concerned in the active duties of his post, as the
following passages show: "It is now about nine o'clock, and the thought
strikes me that the tongues are going both at Tatum's and at the
lecture in Bedford Street; but I fancy myself much better employed than
I should have been at the lecture at either of those places. Indeed, I
have heard one lecture already to-day, and had a finger in it (I can't
say a hand, for I did very little). It was by Mr. Powell on mechanics,
or rather, on rotatory motion, and was a pretty good lecture, but not
very fully attended.
"As I know you will feel a pleasure in hearing in what I have been or
shall be occupied, I will inform you that I have been employed to-day,
in part, in extracting the sugar from a portion of beetroot, and also
in making a compound of sulphur and carbon--a combination which has
lately occupied in a considerable degree the attention of chemists."
About a month after writing the letter of which the above forms a part,
Faraday again wrote to his friend Abbott, giving him an account of
some experiments, in which he had been assisting Sir Humphry Davy, on
"the detonating compound of chlorine and azote, and of four different
and strong explosions of the substance, explosions from which neither
he nor Davy had altogether escaped unhurt." "Of these," he says, "the
most terrible was when I was holding between my thumb and finger a
small tube containing 7-1/2 grains of the compound. My face was within
twelve inches of the tube; but I fortunately had on a glass mask. It
exploded by the slight heat of a small piece of cement that touched
the glass above half-an-inch from the substance, and on the outside.
The explosion was so rapid as to blow my hand open, bear off a part
of one nail, and has made my fingers so sore that I cannot yet use
them easily. The pieces of the tube were projected with such force
as to cut the glass face of the mask I had on." In the other three
experiments also they each of them got more or less cut about by the
explosion of the "terrible compound," as Faraday calls it, Davy,
indeed, in the last one, getting somewhat seriously cut.
He writes thus frequently to Abbott during the summer of 1813, giving
him in the later letters some well thought-out ideas on lectures and
lecturing, which we shall have occasion to glance at when we are
considering Faraday himself in the capacity of a lecturer,--one of
the most popular and yet truly scientific lecturers of any time. In
this year, his twenty-first, Faraday joined the City Philosophical
Society, which had been founded about five years earlier by Mr.
Tatum, at whose house the meetings were held. The Society consisted
of some thirty or forty individuals, "perhaps all in the humble or
moderate rank of life;" and certainly all of them anxious to improve
themselves and add to their knowledge of scientific subjects. Once a
week the members gathered together for mutual instruction; each member
opening the discussion in his turn by reading a paper of a literary
or philosophical nature, any member failing to do so at his proper
time being fined half-a-guinea. In addition, the members had what they
modestly called a "class book," but probably very like what we should
now call a manuscript magazine; in this each member wrote essays, and
the work was passed round from one to another.
Michael, it will be seen, was not neglecting any opportunity of
educating himself; as he had said in starting his correspondence with
Abbott, one of his objects was to improve himself in composition and to
acquire a clear and simple method of expressing that which he had to
say. Yet another method had he of furthering his self-education. In the
scanty notes which he wrote about his own life he says, "During this
spring (1813) Magrath and I established the mutual improvement plan,
and met at my rooms up in the attics of the Royal Institution, or at
Wood Street at his warehouse. It consisted, perhaps, of half-a-dozen
persons, chiefly from the City Philosophical Society, who met of an
evening to read together, and to criticise, correct, and improve each
other's pronunciation and construction of language. The discipline
was very sturdy, the remarks very plain and open, and the results
most valuable. This continued for several years." It is a matter for
wonder how Faraday, with all these attempts to improve his language and
method, and to avoid even the slightest peculiarity, managed yet to
retain in all his work a remarkable simplicity and naturalness of style.
On September 13, 1813, Faraday wrote to his uncle and aunt, giving
them an account of himself because he had nothing else to say, and was
asked by his mother to write the account:--"I was formerly a bookseller
and binder, but am how turned philosopher, which happened thus: Whilst
an apprentice, I, for amusement, learnt a little of chemistry and
other parts of philosophy, and felt an eager desire to proceed in
that way further. After being a journeyman for six months, under a
disagreeable master, I gave up my business, and, by the interest of Sir
Humphry Davy, filled the situation of chemical-assistant to the Royal
Institution of Great Britain, in which office I now remain, and where I
am constantly engaged in observing the works of nature and tracing the
manner in which she directs the arrangement and order of the world. I
have lately had proposals made to me by Sir Humphry Davy to accompany
him, in his travels through Europe and into Asia, as philosophical
assistant. If I go at all, I expect it will be in October next, about
the end, and my absence from home will perhaps be as long as three
years. But, as yet, all is uncertain, I have to repeat that, even
though I may go, my path will not pass near any of my relations, or
permit me to see those whom I so much long to see."
This Continental trip with Davy forms one of the chief episodes in
Faraday's life. He had, though two-and-twenty years of age, never
before been further than a few miles out of London. The country
through which he passed, the sea, and the mountains, all came to him
as a revelation. The letters which he wrote home from abroad, and
the journals which he kept, all express his wonder at the strange
sights, and all breathe the kindliness of nature and affection for
home and those at home which all his life long were strongly marked
characteristics. His letters to his mother are especially pleasing. He
was away for but little over eighteen months, yet an account of his
travels merits a chapter to itself. The commencement of 1813 marked an
epoch in his life, the close of the same year marked another.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[4] Some of the books which Faraday bound for the Royal Institution are
there now; kept carefully with other relics of the great chemist. See
the chapter entitled "About the Royal Institution."
[Illustration]